Procedural Wood Texture

Dave R · 25 Jan 2016, 00:50

Interesting. I'd like to see large flat areas of wood grain textures.

JQL · 25 Jan 2016, 09:28

@dave r said:

Interesting. I'd like to see large flat areas of wood grain textures.

What do you mean? You don't think it would work there?

I haven't downloaded that substance but I can try that for you if you want...

JQL · 25 Jan 2016, 09:32

@baz said:

If this was a poll, I'd be ticking 'Scared'

Scared of UV unwrapping?

I was also scared of it, but it turns out it's not that special. Depending on what you want to Unwrap it's very fast in Sketchup or it's very fast in Blender

Scared of Substance Designer?

That shouldn't scare you at all. It's a great software if you only want to create tileable textures based on either photo textures or procedural textures. It generates all maps from one texture or you can create all of them from scratch fairly easily and you can add a lot of effects to existing maps too.

However if you Unwrap your model, you can texture it there inside Substance Designer and apply incredible effects like wear on corners, dirt, fake bevels, etc...

Dave R · 25 Jan 2016, 11:19

@jql said:

@dave r said:

Interesting. I'd like to see large flat areas of wood grain textures.

What do you mean? You don't think it would work there?

I haven't downloaded that substance but I can try that for you if you want...

I don't know if it would work for long stretches of wood. It's fine to simulate wood grain on something small like the corbel he used as an example in the video but what does it do for something like the long boards in this chest ? How frequently would the texture image repeat? And also, would the species be recognizable? Or is it just sort of generic wood?

Yesterday I made myself some new pine textures. Six boards from the same tree. All 10 feet long and more than 12" wide. They are made from real wood and there'd be no repetition in grain pattern because there's so much wood to choose from.

I don't have time right now to try out that tool so I was just asking the questions.

Rich O Brien · 25 Jan 2016, 11:42

Dave's long grain wood materials are epic!

wish he'd put them out there for purchase

Dave R · 25 Jan 2016, 12:11

Rich, I'll think about it. Problem is, most people seem to want seamless textures and the ones i make are not. Of course they aren't seamless on purpose because real wood isn't.

JQL · 25 Jan 2016, 12:57

@dave r said:

I don't know if it would work for long stretches of wood. It's fine to simulate wood grain on something small like the corbel he used as an example in the video but what does it do for something like the long boards in this chest ?

This is all procedurally generated so it should adapt.

I've been working on a pine wood grain myself. It's meant for plank boards and plywood, and though those are way different wood cuts, wich gives out different shapes on rings and knots and even finer grain, I've created parameters that allow me to display those as I wish so they fit each type.

But I'm no Substance master... nor wood master.

@unknownuser said:

How frequently would the texture image repeat?

I wouldn't know that until I'd try. What I know is the one I created is able to do closeups, long seamless boards or wood pannels and you can also shuffle the grain and add joints so you can make patterns of plywood pannels and woodplanks. Of course, keeping HD and big patterns of pannels and boards needs a lot of resolution. Depending on your GPU you migh go up to 32K but I think that would be overkill...

This one looks like it could go upscale but I don't think it will ever suit planks or wood patterns. The idea migth be solid wood pieces, sculpted, carved or simpler because to tops are concentric and the sides are parallel, like solid wood pieces.

@unknownuser said:

And also, would the species be recognizable? Or is it just sort of generic wood?

I wouldn't know that, but at the end of the video he talks about working in a V2 and that seemed to be his direction. So probably not yet recognizable though, as it is a substance you can tweak it to become recognizable by altering the procedures behind the final output.

@unknownuser said:

I don't have time right now to try out that tool so I was just asking the questions.

I understand that... I'm also curious for a lot of stuff so ask questions first... That's how Rich got me into Blender and that's how my relation with SubD is developing... Yet distant but promising!

baz · 25 Jan 2016, 22:13

@rich o brien said:

Dave's long grain wood materials are epic!

wish he'd put them out there for purchase

jtri · 27 Jan 2016, 01:46

A quick way to get wood textures for small items is http://www.certainlywood.com/index.html web site. They have some good pictures if you hunt around the site and the dimensions of the veneers are in the descriptions.I save the images with my guess as to the width of the piece in the name so I can scale them. I have not tried the long pictures yet. Also a great veneer house. Sorry the pictures are not epic like Dave's.

Dave R · 27 Jan 2016, 12:54

jtri, it looks like they have some nice images of small sections. Might be good for small boxes.

jtri · 28 Jan 2016, 00:39

Looking around the site and you can find some longer good quality picture like this one maybe 20" long. I know get the camera out! http://www.certainlywood.com/images-veneers.php?item=WENGE%201501-5
Dave when you photograph a long board say an 8' board how critical is it to be parallel to the board? What length board is the practical maximum from your experience and what lighting do you use? What are your thoughts on photographing finished vs unfinished wood to use as a material? I have found for small pieces of wood the best way to take a picture and get correct color balance is to use my flat bed scanner.
Thanks
Jeff

Dave R · 28 Jan 2016, 10:44

Jeff,

Although you can do perspective correction in Photoshop and other editors, it is best to get the camera set up as square to the surface as possible. Also set the focal length to something longer to get away from the distortion that occurs naturally with wide angle lenses. Get the lighting as even as possible. Use a lightmeter and gray card to check illumination. I have a hand held spotmeter for that. I work with unfinished boards because I then have the option to add the "finish" in an image editor. For the finish I create a new layer in the editor and paint it with a transparent color. That color can be adjusted until I'm happy with the appearance. Sometimes I'll make three or more different stains to try out. It's easy to readjust the color and opacity of the layer after saving the image.

I made this image a while back to show some variations in stain colors.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/d9FK2d]

I've thought it would be cool to make a scanner that would scan an entire board. Seems like a project for Matthias Wandel.

JQL · 28 Jan 2016, 10:57

I think there are hand held scanners that could do the job. I don't know if they're limited to standard paper sizes.

Dave R · 28 Jan 2016, 11:08

Yes. I was thinking about those handheld scanners. I was also thinking this would be another way I could justify a 48 x 96" CNC machine. Replace the router with a scanner head. You could scan up to a full sheet or plywood.

It wouldn't be limited to wood, either.

Three little problems. I'm not sure if normal scanner software would handle that much image area, not enough space in my shop for a machine that big (especially since I also want to build another boat in it) and there's the problem of not enough shekels in my pocket.

baz · 28 Jan 2016, 11:11

@dave r said:

Yes. I was thinking about those handheld scanners. I was also thinking this would be another way I could justify a 48 x 96" CNC machine. Replace the router with a scanner head. You could scan up to a full sheet or plywood.

Kickstarter campaign maybe?

jtri · 28 Jan 2016, 11:35

We are planning on getting a new plotter/scanner for large prints at work and it will scan in color. Do you think I will get fired if I try scanning sheets of veneer?